Sorry. There is no scan, blood test that is unique.
Dr. Joseph Glenmullen, a clinical instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, “There are no medical tests to diagnose bipolar disorder, depression, or any other psychiatric condition: no blood tests, X-rays, brain scans, or any other objective tests. Medical tests should be used to rule out other conditions that can look like depression such as thyroid conditions. But all psychiatric diagnoses are subjective.”
So you DO turn to science to support what you want to believe and ignore it when you don’t want to believe something.
I stand with the others, you got problems son.
You are mistaking the diagnostic process with the scientific process. DSM IV diagnoses mental illness through subjective questioning and behavior analysis. There is not a scientific diagnostic test for the condition. That does not mean that there are not physcially identifiable symptoms of the condition. There are. It is unclear whether the mental illness is caused by the physical symptoms or vice versa, but they are clearly correlated.
The new University of Michigan result points to a clear difference in the density of monoamine-releasing cells in the brains of bipolar people even when they are not having symptoms.
There is a clearly provable genetic connection, with children of bipolar parents having a 25% chance of having the disorder also. Brain scan results show parts of the brain atrophy more quickly in bipolar patients, and brain activity is different. In mania and depression, intracellular sodium concentration increases during illness and returns to normal with recovery.
There is much they do not know about bipolar illness, but there is a clearly physical component, which can be scientifically tested and is valid in legal proceedings.
These findings are not used in diagnosis, because the pattern of behavior is very notable and consistent. Do you not believe that Alzheimers is real either? There isn’t a blood test for that.